Chip-flation

John had today off from work and we got to spend the day relaxing. This afternoon we went to the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, FL. The casino/hotel is nice but the variety in table games was limited to blackjack, three card poker, and paigow poker. We played a little blackjack but I am extremely disappointed by the effects of inflation in a casino. You used to be able to find loads of $5 and $10 tables and now the minimum bid is $15 on everything. It just sucks because you used to be able to take $100 and do quite a lot of playing (20 hands) and it was below a threshold where the loss would hurt. For a $15 table that means you only get 6 hands in that $100 and, in blackjack, that's not enough to really get going and can too easily disappear quickly. So you either have to spend a lot more or hope you win quickly. Lame. I miss the cheap tables.

However, while wandering around the casino we saw none other than Jason Taylor playing blackjack on the $500 minimum table. That would be Jason Taylor of the Miami Dolphins or Dancing with the Stars fame depending on your taste in TV. He was sitting there with, what I would estimate, was about an 18 inch stack of $500 chips, so roughly $45,000 or a house down payment to the rest of us. Must be nice. He doesn't miss the $5 table.

4th of John

For the holiday weekend I came out to FLorida to be with the hubby and it has been great even though John had to work both yesterday and today. It's a great vacation for me since when he's at work I go do whatever. Yesterday's whatever was several hours on Lantana beach on a beautiful day. Today's whatever was a round of golf and I got paired up with a trio of folks who were around the same age as me a super fun. They also played the way I like to play, mulligan's if you want 'em and ready golf. It is certainly more relaxing that way.

Last night after John got off work we went to Legal Seafoon in Boca Raton for a nice 4th of July dinner. Paul also came with us and we had an excellent meal. The best part was the blackened tuna sashimi, that was a new combo of flavors but it certainly was tasty. Tonight I made lamb kabobs and sweet potato fries for the boys. Tomorrow John has off so I'm sure we'll go find something fun to do!

Sunrise over the Bayou

I've been trying to get up and get some more stick time in the Cessna 150 to get comfortable in the new plane, but between the weather and the plane availability its been rough. So this morning I got up like I would for BC but instead headed over to LVJ. I had a nice flight and practiced some more landings and also headed over to Kemah for a little cruise around the lake. Here is your Tuesday morning sunrise photos over Clear Lake with Galveston Bay beyond.

Weekend Report

The weekend started off nicely with several happy hours at Boondoggles with the peeps. As always it was fun, if not hot and sticky out on the old deck. The rest of the weekend was pretty chill. Soccer game Saturday afternoon we lost, boo. But note to all others, if you want to stay on Nujoud's good side in a game, don't be a tool and shoot a goal when the keeper is lying on the ground with a twisted knee for a good long time before you get the ball. Also after shooting said lame goal on an empty net, DO NOT celebrate right over said keeper still lying on the ground in pain. In fact don't celebrate at all because you should have showed some class and kicked the ball out instead. WTF people??

I also tried to go flying Sat evening only to be denied by high winds. Will try again Tuesday morning before the weather has a chance to suck for the day.

As for Sunday, I went for a run and was terribly tired afterwards (see note on humidity above) and the pups got to go for a walk with me after the run. They do love the walk, maybe next time we'll hit the doggie parkie. Sunday afternoon however, I went to see Get Smart with Brent and Alicia. Good Movie!! I watched the show on Nick at Nite as a kid and I thought this movie did a great job updating the show. The comedy was good and not dumb spoof, so for managing to accomplish that, they get big props. We also went back to my place and attempted to make spinach and cheese ravioli with the new pasta machine. So far I have only managed to produce tasty "rustic" ravioli. Which means they look a sight and I will have to continue trying to get something that resembles a ravioli as an end product. Ravioli status must continue.

The Cigarette Smoking Man

Speaking of consipiracies, you don't perhaps think this guy might have anything to do with it? Check out the list of boards he is a member of.

For the record BA stock has dropped $10 (13%) in a matter of 3 days because of this, which means our bonus has dropped almost 50%. There are a lot of unhappy campers.

Bonus Conspiracy

Mulder and Scully sure would be useful around The Boeing Company this week. Every two years employees get a stock award bonus based on the trading price of the stock on June 30th of the year. It is supposed to make us want to "execute more flawlessly" and get a reward for performance as reflected on Wall Street. Whatever, most of us are so far down in the weeds unless I go steal several boxes of Lockheed proposal data I don't think there is anything I can do to actually affect our stock price.

But this morning a massive selloff of Boeing stock started on this Goldman Sachs sell recommendation. This comes exactly 5 days before our award and is especialyl puzzling on the rationale seeing how only good news has come from the 787 program lately, high gas prices are actually a good thing for Boeing since airlines want more fuel efficient planes, the weak dollar means planes are far CHEAPER for foreign companies, and the tanker protest was upheld, all very good news in Boeing-land. Two years ago Boeing announced a half a billion dollar write-off on the doomed Connexion program the day before our award was determined also tanking the stock price.

Conspiracy? Maybe. Awfully sucky timing at a minimum? Definately.

Rain is for Rainbows

Saturday afternoon my soccer game got called early due to lightning in the area. Not a big deal since we were up 3-0, of which I contributed a smashing good header to the upper corner of the net on a cross by Erin, 2 pts for being a girl. Why does no one have a camera to catch the stuff when you do something right? That header goal would have been at least a 5 on the Sportscenter top ten.

Anywho- that lightning eventually turned into a raging thunderstorm in the area. After the storm passed and I was headed to a friends house, I caught this view from the car and had to pull over to get a couple pictures. There was a full double rainbow, although the reflected double was too faint to really pick up. It was too big for one frame, so I stictched the two together to get this.

Another pilot amoung us

Jen Mendeck passed her FAA Private Pilot checkride yesterday. Congrats Jen!

I like my spaceship...

Doggie Kiddie-Door

My cousin Melanie and the family drove down from Arkansas so they could get a tour of NASA for their 1st-grader Lindsey who was super-excited about it. Monday night while at my house, little bro Aaron found a use for the doggie door himself.



We also had a good time on the tour and they seemed to enjoy it. Lindsey was all prepared with questions for me, but I think NASA overwhelmed her a bit and she ended up not asking me many. As she put it, she was too busy trying to "keep it all in her head" to ask me questions. But even I got sight of something for the first time on the tour, in Bldg 9 I noticed that the new moon rover prototype was being worked on.